[ExI] Book review - Hate Inc. Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another by Matt Taibbi

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Thu Jan 2 13:40:47 UTC 2020


As this book is very critical of the mass media it is difficult to
find a good review from mass media sources. What a surprise!
Try :
<https://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/2019/12/07/review-hatred-inc-and-why-we-hate-cast-light-on-todays-quagmires/>

Quotes:

The “Ten Rules of Hate”
“So long as the public is busy hating each other and not aiming its
ire at the more complex financial and political processes going on
off-camera, there’s very little danger of anything like a a popular
uprising,” Taibbi writes.  His  exposé of the media’s lucrative take
on pedaling hate offers “Ten Rules of Hate”  as a primer through this
cesspool of inhumanity.

Ten Rules of Hate
1. There are only two ideas
2. The two ideas are in permanent conflict
3. Hate people, not institutions
4. Everything is someone else’s fault
5. Nothing is everyone’s fault
6. Root, don’t think
7. No switching teams
8. The other side is literally Hitler
9. In the fight against Hitler, everything is permitted
10. Feel superior
------------

There can be little doubt that both sports and politics continue to
profit from fomenting such tribalism. A chapter in his book titled
“How We Turned the News into Sports” is Taibbi’s takedown of this
conflation.

Another chapter, “How Reading the News is like Smoking,” addresses the
addictive toxicity level of such media assaults with this warning:
“Like cigarettes, this product can have have a profound negative
impact on your health. Almost without exception it will make you
lonelier, more anxious, more distrustful of others, and more
depressed.”

>From Hannity to Maddow, Hate Inc. disrobes the theatrics that is  24/7
news to reveal corporate media for the highly profitable infotainment
product it truly is. Both the book and the documentary examine various
common threads like tribalism, but the most common thread is money and
control.
Hate, it turns out, pays off big time.
---------------

BillK



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